Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

bmcpsychiatry.biomedcentral.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

151–160 of 261 posts

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#151

Post by awesome_dude »

osn9363739 wrote: post #146
awesome_dude wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the problem of correlation being reported in media, people read it as "causation found" When really it's "We've found an interesting association, and we are going to explore it more to see if there's an causation that we can influence"

I think they need to use a different word than associated. That's what's causing the confusion?

Personally I think that reporting of correlations should be dropped altogether - they're very prevalent (reports on correlations) in every day news, and I think that they're damaging because they imply, or outright claim, that the discovery is that some causative effect has been observed.

It's really clickbait territory sometimes (IMO)

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#153

Post by toomuchtodo »

nicce wrote: post #105
moab9 wrote: post #94

Repetitive negative thinking associated WITH EVERYTHING.

Does someone have a medicine for negative thinking?

https://www.psypost.org/psilocybin-therapy-linked-to-lasting...

https://doi.org/10.1556/2054.2025.00461

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#154

Post by ninetyninenine »

cyberax wrote: post #149
ninetyninenine wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First of all if negative thinking is associated with cognitive decline and if what you say is also generally true then humans will also be pretty much, in general, be in cognitive decline. Humans all being generally in a state of cognitive decline doesn’t make sense from an evolutionary perspective because natural selection will weed out degraded cognitive performance. So most people won’t be in this state. Anecdotal…

There are studies on separated Black twins that ended up in different socioeconomic situations. They limit the genetic difference in variation of IQ between races to just a few points. And to be clear, IQ itself is very much inheritable. But the _variation_ in IQ in a population is not explained by genetics.

The variation of IQ among any population follows a bell curve. The center of that bell curve it what is different among races.

https://www.scribbr.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Normal-dis...

So yes you can very much find black people who are smarter than Asians and vice versa but the generality (aka the mean, aka the center of the bell curve) will be different for races.

>But the _variation_ in IQ in a population is not explained by genetics.

This is not proven to be true. The most likely explanation is that variation in a population can be explained by both environment and genetics.

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#155

Post by [deleted] »

ninetyninenine wrote: post #154
cyberax wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are studies on separated Black twins that ended up in different socioeconomic situations. They limit the genetic difference in variation of IQ between races to just a few points. And to be clear, IQ itself is very much inheritable. But the _variation_ in IQ in a population is not explained by genetics.

The variation of IQ among any population follows a bell curve. The center of that bell curve it what is different among races. https://www.scribbr.de/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/Normal-dis... So yes you can very much find black people who are smarter than Asians and vice versa but the generality (aka the mean, aka the center of the bell curve) will be different for races. >But the _variation_ in IQ in a population is…

[deleted]

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#156

Post by loa_in_ »

jncfhnb wrote: post #84
gxs wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This makes perfect sense People forget that nature only optimizes for sexual reproduction and that’s pretty much it In this case for example, it doesn’t really give a shit about your psychological well being or shaving years off your life because of some negative thought pattern If being on your toes, anxious, paranoid, and always looking over your shoulder keeps you alive and making babies - then as far as the devel…

> People forget that nature only optimizes for sexual reproduction and that’s pretty much it Common misunderstanding. Evolution optimizes for system success. Not individual gene propagation. Genomes are not agents with individual goals. Many species, but especially social animals, have numerous behaviors and traits designed to prompt communal success rather than individual survival and reproduction

Genomes have also no awareness, so they are perfectly selfish. It is closer to clockwork than an internet router.

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#157

Post by chickenzzzzu »

tayo42 wrote: post #148
somenameforme wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have children. Hard not to endlessly smile when you see their smiles for you doing nothing more than being there for them. Then, uhh I guess the plan is to have more children once they enter their teen years? Weight lifting also helps with mentality in a million different ways.

having a kid had triggered an constant existential crisis for me. the moments are nice, but overall life is more confusing then ever, and not in a good way.

no cure for life, as proven in two posts

Re: Repetitive negative thinking associated with cognitive decline in older adults

#158

Post by 77pt77 »

hliyan wrote: post #28

I have a personal theory (I'm sure it's not a novel one and it probably has a name) that human brains are naturally predisposed to negative thought than positive thought because our brains are essentially evolved prediction engines. And because it is often easier and faster to lose something than gain it (e.g. it is usually less urgent to act on the signs of deer you might want to hunt and eat, than the sign of a tig…

Losses can be fatal and irreversible but gains almost never are irreversible.

Just another fundamental asymmetry in existence.

Post reply on HN